Emma Reynolds, Gen Y Expert and The New World of Work Expert shares her top 8 predictrends for 2012:

Smartphones make us the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Addicted to checking our phones every minute of the day, people develop persistent thumb and neck issues, and the fastest growing job market becomes chiropractic medicine. “Boutique” recruitment agencies who “truly understand” the chiropractic business flock to this new space and make a fortune.

The world gets nerdier. Babies born in 2012 can program in HTML 5 by their first birthday. Gen Y’s become dinosaurs, and groan about those “Millennials” who never stop speaking in 1’s and 0’s.

HR NO LONGER EXISTS…….as an acronym. Instead, HR rebrands itself as WED (Workforce Experience Design) directly copying Apple’s strategy and terminology. Workers, internally and externally, use elegant devices and slick software to collaborate and connect. Seamless connection to the cloud creates WOW moments and organizations become obsessed over Workforce Experience Design in the way that our dearly beloved Steve Jobs obsessed over his products.

Everyone on earth becomes a recruiter. The employee referral program drops the E (employee) as organizations promote Referrals, from known and unknown channels. Suppliers, partners, customers (known sources) and indeed anyone in the world (unknown sources) can refer potential candidates for jobs – turning everyone in the world into a recruiter. Topprospect.com and others lead the way.

CEOs start thinking beyond headcount, and place more emphasis on project work, solving business challenges not by increasing headcount, but by a focus on high-impact project work. Less ‘jobs’ are posted. This drives a huge surge in portfolio working as people steer away from full-time roles with a single company. Odesk.com and elance.com rise to land a place in the Fortune 50, becoming the two fastest growing e-platforms in 2012. Think e-bay for people. Companies search by personality fit and competency, not previous job title.

Hiring managers take responsibility for recruitment. HR (or WED as its now known) focus solely on sourcing, community building and targeting passive candidates. Hiring managers do the rest. Less forms, less paperwork, less waste, less blame. Hiring managers are accountable for time to hire performance metrics, while WED are measured solely on quality of talent community and passive sourcing shortlist.

Onboarding stops being referred to as “onboarding” as people get fed up with being treated like cattle taken on a conveyor belt into a slaughterhouse. Instead, companies go tribal and use the power of story telling to instill cultural values and develop a sense of shared history. The WED team nominates a company Elder.

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